Watching
by Pendragosnquest
Summary: "There is no more ash in the air; the months of clean up, of burials, of stumbling over the bones of those you knew and loved are over. We just stumble over their memories now." Musings in the night. A series of Vignettes. Post Mockingjay.
1. Chapter 1

Watching

I.

In the soft, velvet humidity of a late spring night , I watch her sleep. With the last light of the moon slipping into the window, I can just see the slight smile she wears in her slumber.

No nightmares tonight. At least, not yet.

I trace a finger down her arm, which she has flung out from the blankets. She doesn't stir. There was a time, after I came back, when we were both still haunted, broken shells, that any movement at night would have her awaken; tense and ready for an attack, as if cornered. As if still in the games, still hunted, still exploited for other people's causes. We were barely more than children and they did this, to us.

The wind shifts and a breeze rushes in through the open window. There is no more ash in the air; the months of clean up, of burials, of stumbling over the bones of those you knew and loved are over. We just stumble over their memories now.

A year ago, a lifetime ago, I never expected this. To be here, like this, with her. I thought, so many times, I'd buy her life with mine...in the arena, in the capital, in the war. And then I thought she'd choose him, but the bombs, and a dead sister, happened.

She tells me this would have happened anyway, on those days when I'm still shaking from visions and waking terrors. When, as I come down and the shuddering starts, I ask her why...why me? She tells me it was always me, she just didn't know it at first. That "the boy with the bread" became the ally in the cave, and in the second arena, with its force-field and beaches, I became the one she couldn't be without. She tells me of going nearly mad when I was taken from her by the capital, and of how I gave her purpose. She tells me of sitting in a chair for months, waiting but not knowing for what, or whom...slowly fading until she heard me planting bushes.

She says I saved her.

She says, often, that she needs me. She shows daily, in a thousand little things, that she is here for me, for us.

A week ago, after need and passion mounted inside both of us, with hands and lips still exploring, with hearts starting to quiet after pounding, I asked her a question, hoping, wanting, needing to hear the answer.

And she said, "Real."

I run my hand along her arm, from shoulder down to elbow. Smooth skin with scars interlacing. She shifts ever so gently in her sleep, towards me, with a murmur escaping from her dream.

_"oh, my girl," _I think, heart full. Mine. With a tender, yet fierce love, I softly kiss her forehead. Mine, to love, to protect, to shelter, to adore. How long have we been the harbor for each other, in all of life's storms?

"Peeta?" a sleepy inquiry, a smile laced with concern, "are you alright? Dreams?"

"No love, shhh, no dreams. Go back to sleep." My free hand strokes her hair back from her face. I kiss her forehead again, then a whisper of a kiss on her lips.

Her eyes are heavy and drooping, as she kisses me back. She turns to fit closer against me, her head nestling into my shoulder. She nuzzles and murmurs something unintelligible as sleep reclaims her.

Some nights almost no sleep comes. Not from the nightmares and terrors, but because I need to drink in the peace of holding her. To know no enemy is coming, that no cannon will boom. That tomorrow there is baking to do as she hunts in the morning, that over lunch we'll discuss the book and spend a quiet afternoon working on it. To know that I can look across the table at her, her brow furrowed in concentration, and know that she is mine. That come after the evening meal, I'll hold her by the fireside, maybe in silence, maybe in conversation, until the hour grows late and I lead her off to bed. To love and commune, in passion and joy.

And through it all, to know we are safe.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Still not my world, still not my characters. Sigh.

Watching.

II.

Life is hard enough in the "New Districts." It was hell before.

And one of the first lessons of hell is you don't get close to people. Ever. Because either they screw you over, disappoint you, or die. You can only handle so much death before you die...at least inside.

All those kids taken before me. Friends. Neighbors. Stuck up jerks from the Merchant pool...they all died. Cut up. Drowned. Starved. However doesn't really matter anymore...they just died.

23 kids in the arena with me. 23 died. Including one almost friend. At least I didn't have to kill her.

Then 23 years of being responsible for taking shit scared kids into the capital...them thinking I could help save em'...and watching the blood baths. Year after year after damn year. The phone calls home. The parents that met me at the trains. The parents who didn't.

All dead. All those kids. Slaughtered.

And people wonder why I drink.

I knew a boy once. He'd catch a bird or mouse, whatever he could, just to torture it. Watch it cry out, struggle and die. The Capitol people are like that; blood for amusement. Anything to forget their boredom.

So there are reasons...damn good ones I think...to keep your distance. When the games cost you your family, your girl, your friends...when the games make you send in kid after scared kid to the alter...how are you supposed to keep caring?

With every death comes a dying of yourself. I was sure I didn't have much left that was still me...and what was there...well hell, I was going to drown it.

I never expected to love them. The pain in ass girl, with her frowns and her rage and her be damned spirit. The boy...do we even raise people that good anymore? I forgot kindness like his still existed. It shouldn't, but there he is. I didn't want to care, I certainly didn't want to love them, but I was in before I knew it.

They're broken now, my kids. Getting better, but broken. I'd kill every damn Capital resident for what they did to that boy, how they hijacked him. He still shakes, not often now...but enough. And between Snow and Coin, there wasn't much left of her.

I thought I was bringing her home to die. That I was going to have to bury one more piece of me in another hole in a forsaken field. I almost had to, but then he came back. The boy came back into mountains of rubble, where his father and mother and brothers still laid in heaps of bones, and the first thing the boy did was dig up primroses. For her.

Always for her.

Coming back from that chemical induced hell of fear and pain, guilt and confusion, the first thing he did was to take care of her.

I remember thinking, "I'll be damned," when Sae told me he was back in 12. I think I passed out after that.

He brought her around though. The fire came back and so did her damn attitude. At least towards me. And I'm the one that came back with her! Ungrateful brat. But she's my brat.

I see them now, coming around the corner. I'm not always drunk in the afternoon, I see more than people think I do. Always have. They're staying at his house now, across from mine. I don't think she can live with the memories in her house, her little sister probably walks the stairs at night in her dreams. We all have our demons, who am I to judge someone else's?

They look good today. Peeta's bakery is almost ready, I think. I hope he'll keep bringing me my loaves here, I don't like walking through center. Too many might-have-beens linger there.

He looks like he's telling a story or a joke maybe. He knows a lot of those. And he knows when to tell them. She's laughing. Actually laughing. She does that more now. He's good to her. She kisses him, quickly, something real and not forced. No acting, no maneuvering, no game playing to keep them alive.

I told her once that she wasn't good enough for him, that she didn't deserve him. That was before I saw her break when the Capital had him, before I knew how deep love goes with a girl like that.

My girl was like that. They say she died screaming as a Peacekeeper cut her throat.

So I drink. For all the girls whose love runs deep, for all the boys who are faithful to the end. For all the dead I can't shut out.

He sees me now, Peeta. With that quirky grin and those honest eyes. He always waves, sometimes I wave back. Today is one of those days.

My kids. They don't know they are, but they're mine. All I have left. At least I salvaged them.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Still not my world, still not my characters. Still sad.

Watching.

III.

He has such strong hands. Capable. Hands that make me feel safe. Hands that make me feel loved.

In so many ways he reminds me of my father. The quiet assurance, the kindness, the joy in life...even when life is bleak. He has the same ability to make me feel safe. He's the only other person who could ever do that.

I like to watch his hands, with wide palms and deft fingers. Whether they are dusty with flour or precise as he draws and paints, they endlessly intrigue me. His hands create, instead of destroy. They summon life, not death.

I've always been good at killing things; I had to be or my family would have starved. And while I'm not ashamed of that...(we all have to eat, right?)...it's not the same as what Peeta does. I destroy and he renews.

He doesn't see it like that, of course. He tells me I provide, I protect, that I'm strong, that I'm fearless. Tell that to the nightmares where I scream because I can't save him. Tell that to the demons that show me how I couldn't protect Prim. Tell that to the shadows that cause me to fall to my knees in the woods and shake because there are dead children all around.

And when I'm done shaking, I come home to him. He opens his arms without a word and envelops me, shelters me. Kisses my forehead and whispers into my hair...telling me how he loves me, he's always loved me, and how he'll always be there. And those hands, those beautiful hands, run along my back, again and again, until my heart has stopped racing and the world has slowed down.

I don't know what I ever did to deserve him, but I am so thankful for him. I'm not good at telling him enough, but he seems to know. I wish I were better with words, like him, so I could tell him everything he is to me.

It's almost winter now, and he's lit a fire. We sit here most nights, wrapped in each other. I listen, my head against his chest, for the steady, strong heartbeat. Steady. Strong. My Peeta.

Officially mine now, and me, his. I came home from the woods a month ago, after spending the afternoon at the lake talking to the memories of my father, and of Prim, and I told my boy with the bread I couldn't do just this anymore.

"_Just what?_" he asked, fearfully. And my heart thudded and was pierced. I meant to word this better, not to scare him, not to wound him...ever again.

I remember shaking my head, "_No, no, Peeta, nothing's wrong. This is coming out all wrong_."

And the frustration must have shown in my voice, because he relaxed, his eyes softened, and he came to me. To grab me with his warm hands and to smile that little, inquisitive smile..."_Then just tell me, love_."

I had gulped, suddenly wanting to chicken out, and kicking myself for it. But we promised to live well, to make these days and years count, to be as fully alive as we can be, for those whose memories we carry around with us. "_I love you, Peeta_," I started, and he smiled and nodded, encouraging me, as ever. What did I do to deserve him? "_And...I have been thinking, for a while about this. I know you said you'd be with me forever, just as we are..."_

"_And I will be. Always,_" he promises, again. The promise of always, what he has given me our whole relationship. Through arenas and tours, through war and healing, through days of laughter and nights of passion. Always.

_"But I know you'd like more, " _I hurry now through the words, unsure of myself. "_Something more permanent, more official...and I'd like us to get toasted_." all in a rush.

And I remember I could barely meet his eyes but I saw enough to see the delight flow into them before his arms crushed me to him and his mouth descended upon mine. He had kissed me, endlessly, in between words of love murmured against my skin, as he carried me off to bed.

My reverie breaks as the fire pops, startling me. I tense, but his arms tighten around me and he kisses the top of my head, calming, assuring me. The firelight glints off of the two toasting rods we hung above the framed certificate. Peeta surprised me by having them made, our initials intertwined in the iron handles.

His fingers, slow and soft, trace my arms; this is one of the best times of the day. All work is done, nothing left to do but be with each other. Sometimes he tells me stories, sometimes he coaxes a song out of me, but often we just sit here, melting into one another. And his hands, his beautiful hands, which I love to watch, make me feel safe. Make me feel wanted. Make me feel loved.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Still not mine, sigh.

**Watching 4**

I didn't want to come here today, but a soldier follows orders.

I stepped off the train somehow surprised to find paved pathways instead of dust and ash, bones and shattered concrete. The air is filled with talking and laughter, not fire bombs and screaming memories, nor haunted silence.

Part of me resents that.

I mean, it's not logical. All things had to move forward, rebuild, renew. But the "me" who is trapped in a horrifying night in 12 can't quite grasp that they had the audacity to heal without me. That while I was moving on with my life, the people, the district, moved on with theirs.

It is almost a dream sequence, that I know this place but I don't. That I should know at least some of these people, but they too have moved on, grown older and they aren't frozen in time like they are in my memories, my dreams and my nightmares.

Why, I wonder for the tenth, hundredth, thousandth time...did anyone come back here? How can you walk streets where people you knew were incinerated? Aren't there sorrows on every corner? Didn't you starve here? Weren't you beaten here?

There hasn't been a coal mine here for just over a decade, but the dust still coats my mouth. I wonder, idly, if it still flavors the food here, tinges the water, seeps into the blood. Or have they been able to banish that as well?

With every official tour before this, I've been able to evade coming back. It was always the duty of a higher ranking officer, and I would find busy work, surprise inspections, *anything* so as not to board the train for 12. But I'm that higher ranking soldier now and an order is an order.

This isn't home anymore, I don't even like talking about it when some suck up new soldier brings up "the bombing that ignited the Districts."

Because the firebombs and the wasteland of 12 didn't unify anyone, it was just death and dust, screams then silence. An arrow shot at an arena started this, and a traitor's arrow shot at a President ended it.

I can't say such things aloud, of course. The Nation's "Song Bird" is still a national treasure, and Paylor and Plutarch guard her zealously. But they never understood President Coin's rage as I did, they never tasted the fire, and so they can't understand what a betrayal it was.

Late at night, when I'm alone, when there is finally quiet, a small voice buzzes in my mind that maybe that's not the real betrayal. That maybe arenas and pearls, kisses and broken madness caused by another boy's captivity has something to do with my unbending unforgiveness.

Morning banishes such thoughts.

I'm thankful today is not the big ceremony; I don't have to be here for the 10th Anniversary of the Rebellion. I will be in 2 that day, overseeing the Academy's celebrations. Today is just part of a tour of all Districts so Plutarch and Cressida can plan where and how to hold each District's part in the panorama, and 12 will be taking the lead role.

They can film three of the remaining Victors here, after all, in a rebuilt city, the symbol of the new life that the New Republic brings. It smacks of sentimentality and propaganda, and Plutarch loves it.

Not many people have come up to me today, with my Commander's uniform and stern visage, I don't look inviting. Purposefully. There might be old friends here, Thom amongst others, but I don't want to linger, to extend the time here. My shoulders ache with the tension of walking these roads, and not seeing what was, but rather what is. The Seam, as I knew it, is gone. With bungalows and small shops, parks and wide streets, all has been replaced. Did I ever walk there or have even the traces of what was been scraped away?

We're almost ready to leave, we've gone over security plans and photo op spots, and all we have to do is cross the Square to get to the car that will take us to the train that will bear us far from here.

The Merchant's Square.

With brightly painted businesses and its wide cobbled square, full of fountains and statues. I catch my breath at the bronze figure of a girl, young, with pig tail braids, with a cat and goat, shirt untucked. A plaque is underneath her feet, no doubt stating who she is so children who grow up in peace will know her name. I don't need to go over; she's another permanent feature of my nightmares and sorrow.

"_Looks just like her, doesn't it_?" says the always jovial Plutarch. (How can he always be so damn happy?)

I merely nod. Another reason I didn't want to come back here. Was it my bomb plan that lit her on fire? Does it matter anymore?

Movement catches my eye. Cressida is coming out of a big, two story building, with bright windows and cafe seating in front. Mellark's Bakery.

My mouth grows dry and I can feel my eyes narrowing.

"_They've done quite well, you know_," says Plutarch conversationally. Damn him and his comments. "_I believe he has three bakers with him now, I'm told they're very busy. That building next to it, see_," he nudges me to acknowledge the adjoining building with a blue facade, banners waving.

I nod again as he continues, "_that's the new art gallery. Can you imagine an art gallery in 12? That was all *her* idea, you know. She wanted him to open a showcase in the Capitol, but he said 12 or nothing, so 12 it is! We're going to work that in to the festivities._"

Plutarch keeps rambling about art and new growth, and I just watch. Watch the big bakery from across a crowded square of people laughing, people shopping, people living. As Cressida turns to say something to the open door, I see a man follow her out. Unmistakably him, with his baker's build and guileless, honest face. He's dusting off his hands on a towel, smiling and laughing at whatever Cressida said.

He looks good for someone who was almost a mutt.

Sometimes I still dream about killing him at one point or another in the rebellion; would that have changed anything? Or would it have been one more unforgivable offense she held against me?

The baker turns, as does Cressida, and like a force of nature, my head turns to the right as well, and I see *her* walking towards them.

Smiling.

She learned to smile in public. Smiles were once reserved for forest glades and morning meadows.

As she comes clear of the crowd, my gut clenches. And my heart twists.

She's pregnant.

She never wanted children. Was never going to marry. (I remember throwing up hours after Paylor mentioned casually that she heard that Katniss and the baker had toasted.)

Or maybe she just didn't want them with me.

She laughs and leans into her baker as he kisses her, his hand gently resting on her stomach. She's still dark haired, lithe and beautiful, and he looks at her as if she is a treasure.

She is.

"_They look happy, don't they?_," murmurs Plutarch. I don't even respond. Can't respond.

Because maybe she's not the traitor I tried to convince myself, maybe she was just a broken girl trying to end the madness of games after games, tyrant after tyrant. And I know, if I am honest, that Coin was as deadly as Snow...but I excused it, because I wanted rivers of blood on Capitol streets. Rivers to pay for mountains of ashes and bone.

And maybe I can't come back here not only because of memories of those ashes and bones, but because I cannot bear to look at her, when she is so openly his. And not mine.

They stand there talking, his arm possessively about her, and she keeps looking up at him with smiles and laughter and love. What I wanted and couldn't have.

"_They deserve this, you know_," Plutarch says with no smile in his voice. "_They deserve this and anything we can give them. They deserve for others to be happy for them too_." A thread of steel in his voice at the end.

I watch for a moment longer, then see Cressida lean in for a hug, and then motion back towards where we are.

"_We don't always get what we deserve, Plutarch_," finding my grim voice. "_I'll be on the train," _as I stride off.

Back to the train. Back to 2, back to life as I have built it. Where memories are for late nights, and song-birds have no place.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Still not my world, still not my characters, still sad.**

**Watching V**

She sits, in an old rocking chair that Haymitch of all people, dug out of his attic. I remember him dragging it over to our front yard one morning, face flushed and focused.

"_What's this?_" I had asked, breathing the fresh, crisp air of an autumn morning.

"_For Katniss. She'll need a chair when the baby comes_," his words are clipped.

I raised my eyebrows and smiled, "_Well, thank you Haymitch, this is very thoughtful of you, really_."

He looked away, then down at the ground, as if struggling over what to say next. When the words do come, they're in a whisper, ground out, "_It was my mother's, and hers before that. I don't have much from them left...my family...but I have this, and you need a chair for the baby_."

I remember my throat tightening, memories are precious here in 12. All of us have lost so much, as almost no heirlooms remain, the firebombs took care of that. I stepped forward to hug him, but he stepped back.

"_I didn't come here for a damn hug, kid, this isn't therapy. Just take the chair into your girl and tell her its for the baby._" And he clomped off back to his house.

Katniss cried over that chair.

And polished it, and dug out cushions for it from the boxes we'd packed away from her Victor's house. She meandered around our home, for the longest time, deciding where to put it before settling on a corner in the kitchen, near the hearth.

The two treasures of my life are sitting in that chair now. Her dark hair falls softly, covering much of her face, as she peers down at our daughter, quietly singing a hill air as a lullaby.

I'm supposed to be making fairy cakes; small cakes to be dusted with sugar, to be served along with the Naming Cake tonight. But I keep getting distracted by the sight of my two miracles together, and I'd like nothing more than to stop and hold them both. I fell asleep last night holding my girls, knowing they were safe in my arms and in my heart.

There will be time for that later though; the batter is almost ready to be poured into the molds to bake. I could have done this at the Bakery, but I didn't want to be gone so long. The Cake, with its rich spices and dried fruit, has been done for a few days now, and the orange liqueur that has been sprinkled upon it is only deepening the flavors. The fairy cakes were my wife's (_after ten years I still preen, even to myself as I say the words: my wife_) idea, so that the children would have a treat of their own to greet the new life with.

We do a lot of celebrating with food here in 12, we always have. We marry with a Toasting, and we greet new life with a Naming Cake. The family and friends of the baby will gather at our home tonight, and over cake and wine, friendship and fellowship, the name will be given. The life will be toasted and celebrated, and we will pledge to keep faith with one another, to guide and protect the newest amongst us.

There is one more ceremony with food, but it is somber, the Saying of Farewell. Where we gather in sorrow and reflection to say goodbye to our dead, after the funeral, and food is involved there too. One makes the driest corn cakes they can, for grief sticks in the throat like crumbs that won't wash away, and sorrow leaves the heart hollow, as poor food leaves the stomach.

* * *

><p>She found me on the edge of the meadow, roughly a month after she told me I was to be a father. Standing on the edge of where a mountain of bone and ashes grows under wildflowers and new grass. Where memories linger for us to meet with and stumble over. It was early morning, and she was returning from the woods, but I wasn't waiting or watching for her.<p>

I was grieving.

"_Peeta?_" I remember the concern in her voice, as her arms went around me. "_What's wrong, why are you here and not at the Bakery?_"

It was some moments before I could respond. Taking in deep breaths to keep grief from swallowing me, from overflowing.

"_It's my Dad's birthday._"

"_Oh, Peeta_," and she just held me tighter.

"_It's my Dad's birthday, and I'm in there, making his recipes and I want to tell him so badly about the baby, and about how we're doing, about everything and I can't. Because he's gone. He's gone and I never really said goodbye. He's just...gone._"

And I cried for the fact my father would never hold my child, that his broad sure hands would never lift his grandchild to the sky and promise them the world, as he did for me. His arms would never shelter my child, as he did me, nor slip sweets and cookies into waiting pockets and open mouths.

That night, as I trudged home from the Bakery, I was surprised to see our friends in the front yard. Haymitch and Sae, Thom and Liam from the Grocers. I was even more surprised to see my apprentices there; Corin, Arch and Padraig. Delly was there with her husband, and Leevy with her new beau; all waiting and wearing somber faces.

"_Are we having a meeting no one told me about?_" I attempt, badly, to smile.

"_No_," says my wife coming out from the house, "_We're Saying a Farewell. Sae helped me with the corn cakes, and it is time to say our goodbyes, Peeta. You never got a chance in 13 to grieve or participate in the ceremony there, so this one is for your Dad, and family_." And she takes me by the hand and leads me to healing. She who had sheltered and saved me in so many other ways, was doing so again; her heart guarding mine, clearing a way to grieve in the manner of our people.

* * *

><p>The fairy cakes are dusted with sugar, the Naming Cake is on the table, the spiced wine is simmering, and the house seems to be bursting with quiet merriment. Our friends, so many of them now, are downstairs, talking and laughing, their voices traveling up to us; joy is called forth tonight and seems to touch everyone.<p>

All of our friends from 12 are here, and so many others have come from far distances; Katniss's mother with Annie and young Finn from Four, Johanna from where ever her restless travels have taken her, Beetee, Cressida and Pollux from the Capitol; though without cameras. Plutarch wanted to film this, but not everything belongs to the world, somethings are too dear to give away. I hear Haymitch roaring at something Effie chirps, and I grin. Homes are meant to hold joy, and ours is abundant in that tonight.

With my daughter, tiny and precious, held securely in my arms, I turn to my wife, my beauty, my song, and I offer her my biggest smile.

"_Shall we go and introduce Laurel Primrose to her family_?" I murmur, and my girl, with soft tears in her eyes, nods and takes my arm.

And as we enter the room, I begin..._"Long may the blessings of love and laughter be upon this home, and upon this family, and upon all who enter in."_


End file.
